Literary Chat
Personal and emotional poetry, however it is dressed up, naturally belongs to the young. Sully-Prudhomme seems to have given us the most modern and the most exact example, but Sully-Prudhomme is far from being impersonal and his philosophy can be profound without ceasing to be emotional. Mr. Lorenzo, however, gave us a lovely definition of poetry that he conceives as "severe in form and thought, rich in images and harmony, animated with a unique breath, sober nevertheless and full of a sincere and content emotion, not whirling and sentimental, reserved for an elite public..." but why go on to proscribe personal poetry and give Leconte de Lisle as the ideal for the youth!